years, and having a whole series of supposedly forgotten incidents or events
connected with our former associations flood into the mind. Things we did,
topics we discussed, trips we took, games we played, now recur at the renewal of
our acquaintance. For these are the things that were contiguous in our
consciousness with our sense of the personality and appearance of our friend.
And who has not in similar fashion had a whiff of perfume or the strains of a
song recall to him his childhood days! Contiguity is again the explanation.
At the Mercy of Our Associations.—Through the law thus operating we are in
a sense at the mercy of our associations, which may be bad as well as good. We
may form certain lines of interest to guide our thought, and attention may in
some degree direct it, but one's mental make-up is, after all, largely dependent on
the character of his associations. Evil thoughts, evil memories, evil imaginations
—these all come about through the association of unworthy or impure images
along with the good in our stream of thought. We may try to forget the base deed
and banish it forever from our thinking, but lo! in an unguarded moment the
nerve current shoots into the old path, and the impure thought flashes into the
mind, unsought and unwelcomed. Every young man who thinks he must indulge
in a little sowing of wild oats before he settles down to a correct life, and so
deals in unworthy thoughts and deeds, is putting a mortgage on his future; for he
will find the inexorable machinery of his nervous system grinding the hated
images of such things back into his mind as surely as the mill returns to the sack
of the miller what he feeds into the hopper. He may refuse to harbor these
thoughts, but he can no more hinder their seeking admission to his mind than he
can prevent the tramp from knocking at his door. He may drive such images
from his mind the moment they are discovered, and indeed is guilty if he does
not; but not taking offense at this rebuff, the unwelcome thought again seeks
admission.
The only protection against the return of the undesirable associations is to
choose lines of thought as little related to them as possible. But even then, do the
best we may, an occasional "connection" will be set up, we know not how, and
the unwelcome image stands staring us in the face, as the corpse of Eugene
Aram's victim confronted him at every turn, though he thought it safely buried.
A minister of my acquaintance tells me that in the holiest moments of his most
exalted thought, images rise in his mind which he loathes, and from which he
recoils in horror. Not only does he drive them away at once, but he seeks to lock
and bar the door against them by firmly resolving that he will never think of
them again. But alas! that is beyond his control. The tares have been sown